Netflix tells employees they may need to work on titles they perceive as harmful | Hacker News Reader

Netflix tells employees they may need to work on titles they perceive as harmful

marketwatch.com

43 pointsmemish32 comments

People need to grow up and realize that moral clarity and ideological purity won't pay the rent. Just as there's no ethical consumption under capitalism, there is no ethical production, either. Everybody is complicit just by living; nobody is innocent.

> Everybody is complicit just by living

Have you read The Rebel by Camus? He basically says the same thing. One solution is suicide. Really good book.

I think the error may be raising the bar to the point of making it a dichotomy, where you are either a saint, or you're evil incarnate, and because being a saint is effectively impossible, the choices are knowingly being evil or being an evil hypocrite.

That is entirely the problem. This false dichotomy is a predicate for the Hacker News “well I may as well sell myself to Facebook or Raytheon and make bank” mindset. In my experience, this does not reflect how people think in the wider world. Well, people privileged enough to be able to take ethics into consideration when choosing employment.

In his "The Myth of Sisyphus" he explores whether suicide is a reasonable response to an absurd existence and concludes that it is not. "The "Rebel" explores whether murder is acceptable and concludes, in a less black and white manner, that it also is not. You've got your books and conclusions wrong.

Thanks, guess I'll have to re-read. By "one solution is suicide" I perhaps should have said, "one option is suicide" - I know Camus doesn't think suicide is a reasonable option.

Plenty of people manage to pay the rent without needing to completely compromise their sense of "moral clarity" or "ideological purity".

Just because there's no ethical consumption under capitalism doesn't mean that helping Amazon union-busters agitate against bathroom breaks or smoothing the way for dozens of gigantic corporations to "headquarter" themselves in a single building in the Caymans, is somehow equivalent to working at an urbanist NGO despite owning a car or owning a computer whose assembly or constituent resources depended on child slavery (this is all of them, by the way).

It's true that none of us are "innocent", but one doesn't have to be part of the problem to make any money. Many of the conceivable blameworthy activities most of us engage in aren't really personally mediated -- I have to drive a car occasionally, but I've lived in places sporting thoughtful infrastructure that supported lifestyles in which cars were unnecessary. Having to choose to use one, and burn gas -- gasp! -- isn't a "personal choice" for most people, it's a structural consequence of the world in which they find themselves. British Petroleum invented the concept of the carbon footprint, in part to help prevent people from realizing this.

> Plenty of people manage to pay the rent without needing to completely compromise their sense of "moral clarity" or "ideological purity".

The point is these people need to find that fulfilling work somewhere else if they object to what their current employer requires them to do. "Ideological purity" and morals are not shared by everyone equally... and if Netflix were to comply with these fringe employee demands, they would lose subscribers who want to watch, for example, the Chappelle special and more.

Netflix isn't a church group... it's a for-profit organization that will always try to give it's customers what they want, despite what some crusading employees think.

Netflix subscribers really just want to watch the office and friends on repeat though.

It just looks better to blame the employees than the managers and owners that theyve lost access to the content that subscribers want

You’re right. Netflix is a for-profit organisation, with employees. “It’s capitalism, so employees get no right to exercise any discretion” is a uniquely nonsensical and frankly American take. If this is truly a fringe issue that nobody cares about, it can be ignored by everyone, including you. Yet here we are.

An alternative viewpoint is that the issue is not so much the right system of ethics as having a sense of proportion.

It sounds like you are in favor of that, but then your first two examples (Amazon vs the Caymans) are confusing - what is so palpably evil about the latter? Also, surely most giant corporations are not legally in the Cayman islands, but Delaware, right?

>what is so palpably evil about the latter?

"Legal" doesn't necessarily imply "ethical" -- interracial and homosexual relationships come to mind, both of which were illegal within recent memory. Thus, it's not enough that megacorps seeking tax havens "follow the law" when they have such resources as to ensure the law comports to their desires. It seems "proportionate" to want those with disproportionate power to have a little less...

>Also, surely most giant corporations are not legally in the Cayman islands, but Delaware, right?

Ugland House [0] is the building I'm describing. Despite being five stories tall, it's the registered office address for 40,000 US firms. You're certainly not wrong to invoke Delaware, whose Corporation Trust Center [1], a "suburban law firm"-looking building of modest size, sports seven times the number of fake corporate headquarters as does Ugland House. I'm given to understand that there are various benefits to the Caymans' regulatory environment, and those that don't have to be on US soil tend to prefer it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ugland_House

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_Trust_Center_(CT_C...

What a sad thing to believe.

That's a perfectly reasonable response, but it can also be framed as empowering. For some, this realization precipitates a Deleuzian scream - a conflict that cannot go unaddressed. For those, it is the beginning of a lifelong project to resolve that very contradiction, a higher purpose as it were.

Ethics are made up, so if you reach a conclusion that we're all pieces of shit and there's nothing to be done, you have the option to just rethink your system of ethics until it's sane.

Like, I'd maybe re-examine your ethical framework until it becomes an actually useful tool for figuring out what's the right thing to do in various situations. That's kind of the whole point.

e: Say, if your boss told you to shoot someone in the back of the head because he didn't want to deal with firing them. Would you say "Ah well... 'tis the way it goes under capitalism, amiright? Gotta pay the rent!". Nope, your line does exist, you just aren't showing your hand to us :P

In an industry notorious for jobhopping what leverage do you actually think these well compensated employees have? There's a horde of people willing to replace them if they wish to take an ideological stance and quit.

They can always start their own streaming service.

None, because techies won't unionize.

What? This has nothing to do with unions. If enough engineers don't want to work on $x, Netflix won't be able to work on $x. If there are enough, they'll find replacements for ones that leave and they'll be able to work on it.

The situation would be identical with unions, unless you think engineers who would be fine working on $x would be OK with their union deciding for them that they shouldn't. More likely they just wouldn't be members of that union.

I never understand why people want to inject an often corrupt, additional layer of insane bureaucracy into a work environment where they already have a lot of leverage. Techies don't unionise for very good reasons!

Or you can fight for absolute good and justice on a war to unweave entropy itself across the entire multiverse. Your choice.

Your argument doesn't match your example? You're saying I should reconsider my ethics until they match with picking up the gun, since the line is made up

Do ethics matter or mean anything if we just start changing them to fit the situation?

Convenient ideology for escapism

It's a little strange that this needs to be said. The employees who don't like whatever is being produced are certainly welcome to find employment elsewhere. Non-competes are not enforceable in California.

The article mentions the dust-up around Chapelle's latest, but he's been offensive for much longer -- a similar issue was raised with the 2019 special Sticks and Stones. So why this culture addendum now?

People are more protesty now than in 2019.

I'm not convinced that's the case. What's different is that the most vocal moral guardians griping about entertainment that tramples their tender sensibilities aren't necessarily conservative Christians any longer. We still have those, but the situation is different from the 1980s, when it was mainly 700 Club viewers along with Tipper Gore and her fellow DC yentas getting so uptight over lyrics to songs like Prince's "Darling Nikki", Judas Priest's "Eat Me Alive", Twisted Sister's "Under the Blade" or Frank Zappa's "Dancing Fool" that the likes of Frank Zappa[0] and Dee Snider[1] had to testify before Congress.

[0]: https://urbigenous.net/library/zappa.html

[1]: https://joesapt.net/superlink/shrg99-529/p73.html

They would rather complain and try to force the hand that feeds them.

> So why this culture addendum now?

I suspect Americans are getting a little tired of the incessant, exaggerated culture wars stories constantly in the news.

They don’t have to in the (very real) sense they can quit. In light of that, they might choose to do what their employer directs (no pun intended) or make a principled stand.

This is a good development. In the last 5 Netflix-produced movies I watched the white heterosexual male was always the predator, women were the victims, and minorities were the saviors. Watch “The weekend away” for an example. At least they could continue from the 90’s and stick with the Russians being the bad guys. Why involving us white dudes /s

Ah yes, ultimatums always boost morale when the stock is down over 70%. Attrition is likely to be an issue.

The beatings will continue until morale improves.

The number of times I've seen that play out over my life is staggering.

One solution is to have employees bid on projects, low bid wins.

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